1. Technical Field
This application relates to the field of electronic components, and more particularly to the field of communication and power management for wireless electronic components.
2. Description of Related Art
There are systems that use a plurality of sensors to collect data. For example, aircraft monitoring systems may use a plurality of sensors that provide sensed data to one or more central processors that use the data to assess the health of system components. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,847,917, which is incorporated by reference herein, which discloses determining a health indicator of a component using condition indicators (CIs) to parameterize characteristics about a component. The CI's are based on sensed data for the component.
Using wireless rather than fixed wired connections for aircraft sub-systems offers many advantages, such as lower weight, reduced complexity of wiring interfaces, simplified installation, and easier maintenance. For example, retrofitting new sub-systems into existing aircraft may become substantially easier and cheaper if no new wiring has to be designed and installed. The use of a large number of sensors to monitor aircraft's state may become more realistic if it does not lead to an increased amount of wiring. However, for wireless sensors to become a viable solution for aircraft and other applications, stringent performance requirements may need to be satisfied. Aircraft applications typically require very high reliability, i.e. data losses have to be very infrequent. The required probability of a lost data item may be several orders of magnitude lower than that typically considered by vendors of commercial wireless components. In addition, data latency requirements may be quite strict. Another issue to be addressed is the desire to limit battery replacement to very infrequent occasions when scheduled aircraft maintenance is performed, which makes energy saving important.
Accordingly, there is a need to develop solutions that address the issues noted above.